A foot in the door: digital photos in National Geo

[BJL]

The "film purist" bit at NG was only a restriction on entries to some contests they run, and in fact it was a transparency film purism, excluding even images output to transparencies that originated in other media like that sinful colour negative film. (I will almost abstain from repeating the rants about how, to be consistent with their dogmatism about unadulterated images, they should have also banned the use of filters on cameras and high saturation films in contest submissions.)

They have for some time been happy to use material from digital sources for their articles.


it is also nice, amidst the wars over which technology gives the absolutely best image quality, to be reminded again that even such "obsolete lumps" as the Fuji S1 and Nikon D1X can do good professional work!

[Bob Casner]

I check the web site at www.nationalgeographic.com on a monthly basis to see the photographer's notes for selected images from each story in the current issue. This month with the June 2003 issue and for the first time that I've noticed, ALL the selected images from the story "Boundary Waters" by Jim Brandenburg are from either a Fuji S1 or Nikon D1X. Also, the selected image at the bottom of the page by Cary Wolinsky in the story "ZipUSA: 02557" is said to be shot by a D1X. My impression was that National Geographic was one of the last of the die hard film purists - I don't really know why given the relatively small page size, and now it seems things are finally changing!